The agenda pending for our recovery from Hurricane Katrina: An editorial

Six years after Hurricane Katrina, metro New Orleans is deep into its recovery from the catastrophe.

The Times-PicayuneSix years after Hurricane Katrina, a massive effort to repair public infrastructure is under way in metro New Orleans. But there has been relatively little progress in securing a robust funding source for coastal restoration and in upgrading our flood protection to shield us from the strongest storms.

A massive effort to repair public infrastructure is under way -- particularly in the city of New Orleans. Our risk of flooding from future storms has been reduced. Transformational changes, including the revolution in New Orleans' public schools, continue.

The Obama administration and Congress have been instrumental in helping us get here, especially by dedicating billions in needed rebuilding aid. The administration has also helped resolve longstanding disputes between local officials and FEMA involving hundreds of projects. Metro area residents are grateful for that aid.

But several crucial items are still pending in our recovery agenda, including unfulfilled commitments to provide substantial funding for coastal restoration and to make progress toward a stronger flood protection system to deal with the fiercest storms.

Some items can be resolved in the near future. Funding for roughly 1,500 large recovery projects remains in dispute, involving about $2 billion in aid. That's a substantial amount. We trust the Obama administration will keep its focus on resolving these disputes quickly.

The administration also should work with Louisiana officials to address FEMA's demands for repayment of aid from some individuals and homeowners. It goes without saying that FEMA should go after anyone suspected of getting aid through fraud. But the agency wants repayment from thousands of people who got more aid than they were eligible for because of FEMA errors or miscalculations. That's not fair. Most have already used the aid to rebuild and can't afford to repay it. In addition, FEMA's previous effort to seek repayment of some Katrina housing aid was so riddled with errors that a federal judge halted the process and the agency had to pay a $2.5 million settlement. Sens. David Vitter and Mary Landrieu are among the sponsors of a bipartisan bill to address FEMA's unfair repayment demands, and Congress needs to pass it if the Obama administration fails to correct this policy.

Congress also needs to extend through 2012 the deadline to complete projects financed with Gulf Opportunity Zone bonds. Thousands of new housing units and hundreds of millions of dollars in investment along the Gulf Coast, including the redevelopment of some New Orleans public housing complexes, may be in jeopardy if the extension is not approved soon.

These immediate recovery issues are important. But it's also vital that Congress and the administration make substantial progress on two indispensable commitments for our region: providing sufficient funding for coastal restoration and upgrading metro New Orleans' flood protection to reduce our risk during the strongest storms.

If there's a lesson from Hurricane Katrina that our nation can't afford to ignore, it is that Louisiana's coastal restoration and hurricane protection must become national priorities -- and that's up to the president and congressional leaders.

Restoring the coast is a matter of survival for our region, but also an issue of great import to the national economy. Louisiana's wetlands buffer us from storm surges, but also nurture a third of the nation's seafood. A vast portion of domestic energy production takes place off our coast, and our region houses the country's largest port system. Yet we're running out of time to make a significant coastal restoration effort before the damage is irreversible.

That's why the White House and Congress need to rally behind a bipartisan bill to dedicate most of the BP spill's fines to environmental restoration, including restoring Louisiana's wetlands. Sens. Landrieu and Vitter, and all but one of their Gulf Coast colleagues, support the measure. So does President Obama. Sen. Barbara Boxer, who chairs the committee that will consider it, has promised to take it up quickly. That needs to happen as soon as Congress returns from summer recess.

The president deserves credit for including $35 million for coastal restoration in his budget proposal -- the first time that's happened. Unfortunately, Congress stripped all but $1 million of that money. But Congress and the president can still assure substantial funds for coastal restoration. They can do so by accelerating the schedule for Louisiana to get a portion of oil revenues produced off our state. That revenue sharing is set to start in 2017, but our coast can't wait that long. At the same time, the administration must remove persistent obstacles for the full resumption of drilling and in the Gulf in coming years. Oil revenue sharing will be of little help to our coast if there's little revenue to share.

Just as vital as saving our coast is ensuring that metro New Orleans is protected from the strongest storms. The completion of improvements to protect us from 100-year storms is remarkable. But the Corps of Engineers can claim to have met the June deadline because it built temporary levees in some areas of the West Bank and temporary pumps at the mouth of New Orleans outfall canals. Congress and the administration must ensure the corps finishes the permanent structures there. The president also promised "the ultimate goal of protecting the entire city" from the fiercest storms -- and that must become a national priority. That starts with the president and Congress forcing the corps to produce a real plan for that upgraded level of protection, with specific projects, as the agency was supposed to do.

Katrina was a 400-year storm, compounded in its lethal force by the failure of the federal levees, and our recovery has been remarkable. But we need the president and Congress to understand that our region's long-term safety is just as important as helping us recover from Katrina.